Millie Bobby Brown has said she would have worked in a care home if she hadn’t found success as a Hollywood actor.
Brown, who is best known for playing Eleven in Netflix’s Stranger Things, discussed her other career passions in an interview about her historical novel Nineteen Steps, which was inspired by her late grandmother.
“A huge passion of mine, had I not taken the route that I had taken, would have been to work in a care home,” Brown told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. “I love the history of older people and the stories they tell, even if they are completely made up, which sometimes they are.
“But I hope after reading [Nineteen Steps], you go and talk to that grandparent or your parents and you ask them what they know about your family history.”
Brown’s grandmother Ruth died in November 2020 from Alzheimer’s disease. She penned a tribute to her on Instagram at the time, where she called the disease “evil”.
Speaking about recording the audiobook, the actor explained how she was “a bit scared” to read the book aloud, describing Ruth’s passing as “one of the hardest things” she’s been through.
“So doing the audiobook I was a bit scared of talking it because I’d read it privately so much to myself,” Brown said.
“I lit a candle and put her picture in front of me and it was a very emotional few weeks of rehashing all of these stories and also tonally getting how she would tell these stories.”
Nineteen Steps, which was released on September 12, is described as an “epic story of love, loss and secrets”. The book follows an 18-year-old woman named Nellie Morris who faces a “tragic accident” during an air raid amid the Second World War.
Brown is set to star in the fifth and final season of Stranger Things. Production on the final season was halted earlier this year due to the ongoing Hollywood strikes.
